nice option SortDirExt=1 in TC was meant purely to sort directories by extension. So that clicking on Ext tab would sort all dirs according to extension (yeah, I'm using extensions for dirs to sort things out). It didn't influence normal sorting order by name.

However in TC v9 if SortDirExt=1 is set in windcmd.ini it starts to influence normal sorting order by Name.

E.g. directories "v6.4" and "v6.3 X.5" will be sorted like this

v6.4
v6.3 X.5

or did I miss some "hidden" option like "natural sorting order" or something else

So I can get old behaviour but for account of not being able to sort dirs by date/time.

Thanks for tip, but I hope this will be "fixed" and both options will be available.

May be it has something to do with which dot is used as "separator" between name and extension of dir - first dot or last dot... Just guessing. But old behavior was "better" so even if this change is intentional may be it could be made optional.

I think the way TC 9.12 does it is the right way - if dirs are considered to have extensions (SortDirExt=1), the NAME of the two dirs are:
v6
v6.3 X

So the shortest one has to be placed first - as TC 9.12 does it.

Windows Explorer sorts them opposite though, and so do the NTFS file system (TC's sorting set to Unsorted). Console DIR command also sorts them opposite, but DIR /OG (group dirs) sorts like TC 9.12 does, but then again DIR /OGN sorts like Explorer.

If dirs are NOT considered to have extensions (SortDirExt=0), then the NAMES are:
v6.3 X.5
v6.4

and should be sorted by name in this way - also as TC 9.12 does it

I cannot find anything in history.txt that explicitly explains the difference between TC 9.12 and TC 8.52a

Last edited by petermad on 2018-01-08, 07:00 UTC, edited 1 time in total.

I can only speak from the point of view of a person who uses "extensions" of folders/directories (which is very substandard "lifehack" irrelevant to Windows Explorer and NFTS) - that previous sorting in 8.52a was more natural and worked better.

(Probably) no OSes or file systems are using folder "extension" anyway so we are completely inside of TC universe and habits of its users here.

I just found that FAR users had same discussion and without any conclusive decision. They just left it "as is" and it's different than in TC.

Since this "old" sorting type has been in TC for decades (probably since this feature introduced), changing it seems more "breaking" than "fixing".